Ankara, Turkey: Turkey's incoming premier Binali Yildirim said on Monday he was working on a new cabinet after being handed the task by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, without saying when the new lineup would be announced.
"It is not the first time a government is formed in Turkey. A list of the cabinet is being prepared," he told reporters in Ankara.
Yildirim was on Sunday chosen by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as its chairman, replacing Ahmet Davutoglu, who stepped down as premier after a power struggle with Erdogan. According to party rules, the posts of party leader and premier are held by the same person.
Yildirim was the sole candidate for leadership at the party congress.
In an address to party delegates, Yildirim vowed to beef up the powers of president through changes to the constitution which would see Turkey shifting away from a parliamentary system that keeps the premier strong.
Yildirim said today he would present the new cabinet list to Erdogan "whenever it is convenient for him" as the president is currently hosting a UN-backed humanitarian summit which ends on Tuesday.
"Do not worry, it will be sorted out in a short while," he said, without giving further detail.
Markets are closely watching the formation of the new cabinet amid speculation that Erdogan's son-in-law Berat Albayrak may replace Mehmet Simsek as the deputy prime minister in charge of economy.
"We think markets' heavy emphasis on names is misplaced, for we think that incoming ministers will have little influence on policy direction and it will be Erdogan team calling the shots," Inan Demir, chief economist at Finansbank, said.
"Nonetheless, we acknowledge that markets will prefer to see familiar faces and absence of Simsek could serve as a red flag," he wrote in a note to clients.
Yildirim's appointment comes as Turkey is battling Kurdish militants in the southeast and the ISIS in Syria.
Last week, the Turkish parliament passed a contentious bill lifting immunity for dozens of pro-Kurdish and other MPs which could drive them out of parliament.
'Party-Affiliated President'
Turkish media said the AKP was mulling the idea of a "party-affiliated president" meaning Erdogan could rejoin the party he co-founded -- or at least overtly support it.
According to Turkey's constitution, the head of state has to remain neutral and sever his bonds with all political parties, meaning that when Erdogan became president in 2014, he had to leave the AKP.
However, in a message read out at Sunday's congress, Erdogan said: "The bonds of my heart with you have never and will never be cut."
And Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag made no secret of who he thought was AKP's guiding light, describing it as "Tayyip's party".
The AKP is working on a mini-constitutional amendment package seeking to prevent any potential power conflict between the president and prime minister, the HaberTurk newspaper reported, quoting party sources.
The amendment would to remove the neutrality provision from constitution and replace it with a party-affiliated president, it said.
Abdulkadir Selvi, a pro-government columnist in the Hurriyet newspaper, said Erdogan's message to the congress had kicked off the era of a party-affiliated presidency.
He said Yildirim would not only be party leader and prime minister but had also undertaken an important mission on the issues concerning the "presidential system" and a "party-affiliated president".
